Scroll Reader with The plus addon with CreditDarius Kell: Part One
The lights flicker on and off sporadically. They flicker. Not constantly, but just enough to agitate. It’s the kind of flicker that unsettles more than it interrupts. We’ve all heard this type of taunt before. The kind that whispers, “The maintenance team went home early.”
The overheads hum, powering down for a second, snapping back with a hard clunk. The residue of long passed insects still line half the thick polycarbonate covers.
Below the catwalk, the machines thunder and shriek. Pistons drive. Belts snap. Metal folds into metal. Voices rise to meet the noise, shouting, with insults drowning out instructions. It’s industrial opera, loud and graceless. For many, it’s relentless.
The turbulent inconsistent rotating has rubbed against Darius Kell for far too long. Having been the Foreman here for twenty years, his entire day is surrounded by noise. From the machines to the wallowing ignorance of his suited superiors, he holds his jaw firmly together.
The sound gets under his skin, more than he would ever let show. It scratches at the walls of his restraint, but recently it’s become worse. The noise represents a thing inside him, something he hasn’t let out. He isn’t yet himself. Not fully. Not freely. Like a psychopath who has never allowed himself to be a psychopath.
He stares down the room from the steel walkway above the production floor, keeping an eye on Michael Frost.
“There’s always one,” he says to himself.
The machinery thunders below, loud and relentless, but it’s the human noise that unsettles him more. Frost leans against a control panel, tapping a sequence with careless fingers.
He stands on the grated steel walkway above the line. Arms crossed, back straight, clipboard tucked under one arm like a weapon that’s never drawn. He watches, listens, absorbs. The noise isn’t just noise to him. It’s a message. And lately, it keeps repeating itself.
He’s been here long enough to understand what chaos looks like before it happens. And something below is already off-rhythm.
Darius adjusts his stance. The clipboard doesn’t shift. He releases the rail from his grip and heads down the lane, past station after station. As the long walk stares back at him, he thinks ‘There are people who want to be here, who want to work and then there are those like Michael Frost.’
Unlike people, machines are loud but reliable. Brutal, but honest. It’s the human element which drifts, creating real risk, inducing real harm.
Darius walks at pace, with a consistent purpose. Where ever he goes he has a purpose, everything he says and thinks has a methodical purpose. His eyes fixed on the one man of the moment.
Michael’s headphones may be on, but this doesn’t mean he’s at work. He is regularly off in the clouds, picturing himself at a rave.
The young man, a man child as described by a few, leans embedded against the wall of Munitions Station Six. Messy hair, messy desk. His uniform half-zipped with boredom wreaking across his face. Darius already knows how this will go.
Darius addresses him calmly, politely, asking him to refocus. The overheads flicker again. The fourth time this hour.
“Frost!” Darius calls, his voice deep enough to cut through the machines.
Frost doesn’t move, as he pretends not to hear. The usual routine. Darius steps forward, boots echoing off the metal walkway.
“I said…”
“I heard you,” Frost mutters without turning.
Darius stops. Not five feet behind him now. He thinks for a moment, his eyes looking up and across the high metal ceiling. He continues walking towards Frost, steering round his station and straight towards his ear. Frost stops his finger score.
Leaning down to Frost’s ear, “You’ve got five warnings in a single cycle,” he says. “I should already have you on post-shift review.”
Frost shrugs. “Then do it. You think they read anything you have to say?”
A pressure vat hisses violently nearby, one of the floor’s steam valves misfires again. A burst of white fog coils through the lower grating. Workers flinch. Darius doesn’t.
He leans in slightly further, inches from his ear this time.
“You think this is about me and a clipboard?” he asks. “It’s not. It’s about you not getting someone’s arm caught in a press because you’re too busy proving a point.”
Frost finally turns, eyes tired but defiant.
“You don’t know what it’s like,” he says. “You just watch us. You’ve never been us.”
The ignorance stings more than Darius will admit. He’s been “us” far longer than he’s been “them.” He’s worked the floor, eaten the grit and taken the graveyard shifts no one else would touch. But his size, his title and his clipboard have done what titles always do, they’ve made the people forget he used to be on their side of the press line.
He lifts the clipboard, fingers tightening around the edge.
Frost continues, enjoying the moment. He shrugs off the warnings, then smirks and says,
“Then do it. Go ahead, add my name to your little clipboard. You know it’ll take months before anyone with a spine reads it. By then I’ll be on Sunwell Green with a filthy blonde assistant, while you’re still here reminding people, like yourself, which buttons to press.” Darius remains still, focused on Frost, his experience and instinct preparing him for the crescendo.
“Go on,” Frost says, his voice rising, aware that those nearby are giving him centre stage. “Capital F, R, O, S, T!”
The taunt hangs heavy in the air, Frost’s gleaming satisfaction reasserts his cruel nature. The sticky atmosphere is enough to induce anger and frustration in anyone, but patronisation causes Darius’ blood to boil. He stares Frost straight in the eyes.
“Mr. Kell. A word, please.”
The voice clipped and cold. Stern, young and unburdened.
Supervisor Harlen stands five feet from Darius, interrupting Frost’s over confident theatre.
“Okay,” Darius replies softly. Without the final look Frost was expecting, Darius turns and walks, his boots echoing throughout all paused machinery.
The heat chokes most men. The grit stings as the grime embeds into his face. Reaching for the rag attached to his belt, he wipes the sweat from his forehead. The streaks of carbon reducing as he folds the rag for each new absorption. Though not intending to stay with Harlen long, his form of respect fights back the knowledge that he’ll be coated again within minutes of leaving the office. The factory doesn’t allow its workers to stay clean, or comfortable.
Harlem’s steps remain silent.
“Go on,” Frost says, his voice rising, aware that those nearby are giving him centre stage. “Capital F, R, O, S, T!”
The taunt hangs heavy in the air, Frost’s gleaming satisfaction reasserts his cruel nature. The sticky atmosphere is enough to induce anger and frustration in anyone, but patronisation causes Darius’ blood to boil. He stares Frost straight in the eyes.
“Mr. Kell. A word, please.”
The voice clipped and cold. Stern, young and unburdened.
Supervisor Harlen stands five feet from Darius, interrupting Frost’s over confident theatre.
“Okay,” Darius replies softly. Without the final look Frost was expecting, Darius turns and walks, his boots echoing throughout all paused machinery.
The heat chokes most men. The grit stings as the grime embeds into his face. Reaching for the rag attached to his belt, he wipes the sweat from his forehead. The streaks of carbon reducing as he folds the rag for each new absorption. Though not intending to stay with Harlen long, his form of respect fights back the knowledge that he’ll be coated again within minutes of leaving the office. The factory doesn’t allow its workers to stay clean, or comfortable.
Harlem’s steps remain silent.
